well, i put in my new front sway bar, and in order to accomplish this, i had to take off the tension rods. i put new bushings in the tension rods, and put them all back on, but i'm having trouble getting the alignment all set up. the haynes says to use an open-ended torque wrench to tighten it all down. well, no one in my city seems to have one. is there any way to set up the alignment without an open-ended torque wrench?? thanks!

 

if its driveable, you will most likely need front end alignment when ur done, so might just let them do all the tightning while the cars up on the racks,,,

 

It's too late now but you should have taken a measurement from the end of both tension rods to their respective brackets. That way you can get the alignment back exactly the way it was.

For now, just follow the procedure in Haynes and torque the bolts up nice and tight. You don't need a torque wrench. Then go and get an alignment.

This is just another instance where the Haynes manual does a **** poor job of explaining how to do things correctly.

 

i did measure before i took them off, but it didin't matter b/c the new bushings are bigger than the old rubber ones. thanks, i'll just get it best i can

 

Uhm hello, think about this a little.

If the measurement from the end of the rod to the bracket stays the same then the alignment will be exactly the same... regardless of the size of the bushing.

That's why you take the measurement from the rod to the bracket and not to the locknut.

I did this swap just a week ago and my alignment settings were exactly the same afterwards.

 

I did the same swap two months ago and took the measurements. Everything worked fine.

I then went and had the car aligned because I wanted to add a good deal more caster.

I autocross my car and I wanted to change the front-end specs.

I suggest that you figure out what camber, caster, and toe settings you want and go have the car set to your specifications.